Blood Secrets: Chronicles of a Crime Scene Reconstructionist by Ann Rule

anger in check, but when I got back to the station, I wrote a memo to the chief of police defending myself and complaining about Emerson’s comments. The result wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for: The chief wrote his own complaint to the judge, saying that he supported my actions. But he still ordered the whole department to go to baton-training school. Worse, thanks to me and my boxing match behind Tahitian Village, we had to carry our batons in ringson our belts at all times from then on, which made walking, running, driving, and even sitting down at your desk awkward and cumbersome.
    “Thanks a lot, man,” my colleagues grumbled. They were as ticked at me as I was at Judge Emerson.
A Nose for Narcotics
    Licking my wounds, I went back to work. I was getting good at what I did, discovering I had a sixth sense for the cars carrying drugs. Sometimes I could tell from subtle glitches in the driving. Sometimes furtive motions from the front seat gave the drivers or their passengers away. Sometimes a simple hunch would tip me off.
    Soon I led the department in narcotics arrests. I was assigned to AI (accident investigation), but I was still catching so many drug users that I landed myself right back in the crosshairs of Judge Emerson. I had been gracing the L.A. County District Court judges’ courtrooms so often to testify that he convinced himself I must be in league with the drug trade. “You’ve got a whole police department down there,” he told my boss. “How come one guy is making all these narcotics arrests?” He couldn’t believe the busts were legitimate. He figured I was planting dope, faking probable cause for pulling people over, or getting inside tips from an informant. Finally, he demanded a ride-along.
    I was still fuming about the man’s barbed comments, but I had no idea he was targeting me. I thought he just wanted to do a ride-along and I had been unlucky enough to get stuck with him.
    At around seven P.M. we were sitting next to each other parked on Imperial Highway, working radar and trying to make polite conversation despite the ill will almost palpable in the car, when a black 1959 Ford Fairlane sped past us. I clocked the Ford at twenty milesover the limit. At fifteen over, I would have let him go. But that speed on this road was dangerous. I turned on the overhead lights and tailed the car, spying the familiar hunched pose—the telltale hurried scramble of a user fumbling to stuff his stash under the seat.
    When the car finally pulled over, I approached the driver and motioned for him to roll down the window. He cracked it a mere two inches. A pair of bloodshot eyes with pupils so dilated that I could barely make out a rim of iris around them blinked up at me. I glanced back at Emerson and waved him out of the car.
    “Could you come over here for a minute, Judge?” I asked him. He walked up to me. “Can you smell that, Your Honor?” Pungent fumes of pot smoke were wafting out of the cracked window. Emerson nodded.
    “You’re gonna have to step out of the car, sir,” I told the driver while Judge Emerson peered over my shoulder. Reluctantly, he swung open the door and stepped out. As he did, I caught sight of something black and shiny peeking out from under the passenger’s seat. I ordered the driver to face the car, handcuffed him, and read him his rights.
    “Take a closer look in there, Your Honor,” I told Emerson, indicating the car’s interior. Emerson strolled over to the passenger’s side and opened it. Across the top of the Ford, I watched his eyes widen as he spied the half-hidden handgun on the floor.
    “Anything else under the seat?” I asked, keeping my voice casual. Emerson bent down for a closer look. Sure enough, there was “jar” after “jar”—a thousand pills each—of colorful “reds” and “yellows” (barbiturates and Nembutal), all neatly divided into plastic bags for sale. We had just nabbed a dealer en route to a delivery, enjoying a joint along